12 October 2020

Prompt: Drip

Character/Pairing: Dingo King (OC), Luka Couffaine, Marinette Dupain-Cheng; Lukanette

Rating: T / PG-13 / Teen

Notes: Quick practically gift-wrapped this one, but I was running nonstop Monday & got too ambitious with it. I broke my time limit to get the full idea in and I'm still thinking it needs a full fic and not a prompt ficlet? I wasn't gonna think that with any of these and whoops…

"Are you ready?" Dingo asks, fidgeting with the camera a little. Luka's fidgeting himself, but with something much smaller. He grins at Dingo, and there's something…not helpless, but kinda, about that grin.

"As I'll ever be," he says. He looks back at the pick in his hands – it's an old one, one he gave away years ago but keeps finding its way back to him – and flips it over his knuckles again. "Think she'll say yes?"

"You actually think she'll say no?" Dingo snorts, and Luka shoves him a little. "She'd be crazy not to."

"I'm just crazy enough to be afraid she will," Luka confesses, and Dingo snorts again.

"Not crazy," he says, fidgeting with the settings on the camera. He wishes they would just let him use his phone, but Rose was insistent the Moment had to be captured with an actual video camera. Some old-fashioned sentimentality or something. He looks back up at Luka and grins. "Just stupid."

"Ding –" Luka starts, but then they hear Marinette's voice from above deck and Luka's staring at the steps like he actually is terrified she'll refuse him. Dingo snickers and gives him a shove.

"Get up there, dumbass!" he hisses, and then Luka's hand is fisting around the pick and he's nodding. Dingo follows him up the stairs, slipping behind some crates while Marinette's back is turned. He settles in to record what he knows will be one of the biggest moments of their lives.

"Hey!" Luka calls, and Marinette's smile is blinding as she turns to face him. She'd been staring at the setup by the old stage: the instruments pushed back to make way for a picnic, with fairy lights strung from the supports and the Paris sun setting behind them. George is sitting in his old stand by the blanket, waiting for Luka to grab him for an improvised serenade. She jabs her thumb over her shoulder, laughing.

"What's all this?" she asks, and Luka just smiles as he takes her hands and pulls her towards him, bending to give her a kiss.

"Happy anniversary," he says. She's still laughing.

"Happy anniversary," she answers. "We couldn't have done this at home?"

"It's a big one," he says, tugging her towards the stage. They sit down on the blanket, and he starts to pull their dinner out of the basket. "Five years, darning. I thought…you know…it'd be kind of romantic to come back to where we first met?"

"Then we'd be having this picnic in your old cabin," she giggles, and he chuckles in reply.

"Too cramped on my bed," he teases, then winks. "Not that I'd mind, but…the stage works fine. We met at the Music Festival, after all."

"You scared me, and I started stuttering like an idiot, and you teased me," she sniffs, and he chuckles before pulling her in for a kiss.

"You were adorable," he murmurs against her lips. "You stole my heart that day, you know. And you never gave it back."

"I don't intend to," she says softly, kissing him again. From behind the crates, Dingo pulls a face and wishes his mate would just get on with it. "As long as you'll let me have it."

Luka smiles and reaches into his pocket, and Marinette's eyebrows rise a little in curiosity. He pulls the pick out and starts flipping it across his knuckles again.

"I dunno," he says, looking up at her with a grin. He holds the pick up, the side with Jagged Stone's face grinning at Marinette. Hiding the message he'd scrawled on the back. "You tend to give things back when I don't want you to. You sure you'll hold onto my heart?"

"That doesn't count, you dork!" she laughs, reaching to snatch the pick back from him.

The pick is practically ancient by this point. It used to be Luka's favorite, back when he was just a music nerd who loved Jagged Stone a little too much. He had told Marinette he had tons like it, but that particular pick had been a limited edition he'd gotten special with a preorder package for Jagged's Rock Giant album. And he had given it away to Marinette without a second thought, because she'd liked it and he'd liked her and…she had later turned it into a necklace, and Jagged had crowed when he'd seen it – and told Marinette where exactly the pick was from, and if he'd known she was going to be so creative with it he could've gotten her extras, and hey can we do that for the next album? Marinette had been devastated, and she'd tried to force Luka to take it back, except Luka wouldn't because he loved the necklace, and loved Marinette, and loved Marinette wearing it. She had still been devastated that she'd destroyed, according to her, such a special item, and she'd turned the necklace into a bracelet and gave it back to him on his next birthday. He'd left it in her jewelry box the next time he was over at the bakery, and thus began a constant game of sneaking the pick back to the other.

It used to be his favorite because he was a Jagged Stone fan and it was limited release merch. Only a hundred like it in the world. It's his favorite now because it's Marinette's, and she wears his guitar pick like American high schoolers wear their boyfriend's class ring. Except when she makes him wear it instead. Ultimately, it's special to Luka not because it was his favorite pick but because it had technically been his first gift to Marinette, and by this point the stupid thing is worth more in sentimental value than monetary value (which…it technically wasn't worth much monetarily, not anymore, not since Marinette had poked a hole through the top to turn it into a charm).

And now it's going to be something more – or…it should have been. Would have been. If Luka hadn't leaned back as Marinette had reached for it, and if a playful bit of scrabbling hadn't sent it flying from his hand.

Straight into the Seine.

Before Marinette could even properly see the marry me? scrawled in tiny, metallic silver marker on the back.

And, of course, because it's that pick, Luka shoves himself up and over the rail and leaps into the river after it. Because it's Luka. And of fucking course he would.

Marinette's shriek is drowned out by Dingo's yelp as he scrambles away from the crates and over to the rail, the camera still raised as he scans the dark water for any sign of his friend.

"Dingo?!" Marinette cries, stumbling back a bit at his sudden appearance. "What are you…?"

"Got it!" Luka shouts as he breaks the surface, the pick raised triumphantly above his head. His expression darkens when he sees Dingo. "Dingo! She wasn't supposed to see you!"

"Yeah, well, don't go jumping into the river next time you try and propose!" Dingo calls back. He turns to Marinette, whose eyes have widened and skin has turned several shades paler, and shoves the camera into her hands before reaching for a rope he can toss down to Luka. "Hold this, baby girl. God, you're an idiot!"

Dingo ignores whatever Luka shouts back at him, certain it's quite rude, and hauls him over the side of the boat. Luka stands there glaring at him, dripping onto the deck, and Dingo grins as he takes the camera back from Marinette. She still hasn't moved since he'd shoved it at her.

"Ok, go!" Dingo whisper-shouts at them, waving as he takes a couple steps back. "Pretend I'm not even here!"

"It's a little late for that, you –" Luka snaps, taking a step towards him, but he stops at Marinette's hand on his arm. When he looks back at her, she's smiling so wide he's certain her face has to be killing her. She squeezes his arm a bit, unintentionally wringing a bit of water from his sleeve.

"Propose?" she asks, and Luka laughs a little – a lot – helplessly as he hands her the pick, the message on the back facing her this time. Her eyes widen in delight, and she throws herself at him – and this time she holds onto the pick, even as her other hand tangles in his soaking hair. "Yes! Yes, you doofus! Yes!"

"Told you so!" Dingo calls, and he cackles as they both flip him off, neither breaking their kiss to do so.